The boss of Britain’s biggest tour operator has insisted that the company’s tax affairs are “very clear and very transparent”, after it emerged that it had paid no corporation tax despite a “record year”.

Peter Long, the chief executive of TUI Travel, said that the company had paid zero corporation tax after offsetting previous losses resulting from the restructuring of the business and the cost of dealing with fallout from the volcanic ash cloud in 2010.

He said that the group complied with the rules in all the countries it operated in. “This is not down to clever tax planning,